


Days Like These

by akamarykate



Category: Early Edition
Genre: Gen, Platonic Female/Male Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-24
Updated: 2006-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:21:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1633646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akamarykate/pseuds/akamarykate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are days when even a guy who knows the future could use a little help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Days Like These

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to the lovely inkling for a faster-than-light beta!
> 
> Written for fantasmabob

 

 

"Hey, Mr. Hobson!"

"Hi, Mr. H.!"

Gary gave half-hearted waves to the wait staff who greeted him as he dragged into McGinty's. After being out in the rain all day, it seemed ridiculously bright indoors. Finally, blinking hard, he spotted Marissa at the far end of the bar. She had one of her Braille texts in front of her, but her fingers weren't on it. She was directing traffic, prepping the staff for the dinner rush.

"Sarah, be sure you get the new menus out to the tables before people start coming in. And when Jim gets back up here, have him check the rum supply. We always get more orders for rum drinks once the fall turns wet. Tell Jackie to make sure the salt and pepper shakers are okay--I heard Mr. Benson in here earlier and he thinks it's funny to play practical jokes on our customers."

"Sure thing." Sarah turned, her grin dimpling. "Hi, Gary. How's it going?"

"I've had better days," he admitted as she went whistling off to get things ready. "Hey, Marissa." He peeled off his damp jacket and draped it over the stool next to hers, then collapsed into it and put his head down on his arms.

"You don't want to--"

"Gah, what is this?" Gary yelped. He'd put his arms right down in a puddle of some kind of liquid--beer, by the smell of it. It was enough to make him dizzy, and he hadn't had a drink all day.

"Sorry. Jim hasn't had a chance to clean that up yet," Marissa told him. "Our bar towels keep disappearing, and he had to go to the basement for more."

"You know what? I don't care." Gary put his head down again, not caring that his arms were wet and cold, nor that his hair would smell like a brewery for the rest of the day.

"Soooo..." Marissa said slowly, "What's up?"

"I can't do this anymore." He kept his head down, waiting for the inevitable response...

...which didn't come.

He turned his head so he could see her. There was something different about her, but in his exhausted state, he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was. She was just Marissa, perched on her stool and listening intently. "So where's the pep talk? Aren't you going to tell me that of course I can, I just need some rest? Or at least ask why I can't do it?"

"I'm waiting to see how much you actually mean it. I can't tell if you're frustrated, or angry, or if you're just tired."

"Pretty much tired," he said with a sigh. "Pretty much completely exhausted. Seven."

"Seven?"

"That's how many stories I've already fixed." Without lifting his head, he reached for the paper in his back pocket, yanked it out, and slapped it on the bar. Little drops of beer landed on his face. "Not only is seven not the end of it, this isn't even the busiest day I've had this month." He closed his eyes for a moment of blessed darkness. "What the hell is going on?"

"It does seem as though you've been gone a lot more than usual the past couple of weeks," Marissa said.

"The paper just isn't letting up," he mumbled into his folded arms. "Every time I turn around, it's something else. There were four car crashes this morning, and two muggings, one on either end of the Loop, half an hour apart, and then just as I was going to buy a hot dog, another story appeared and I had to go stop an ATM robbery. I'm telling you, I'm doing the best I can, and it's just getting worse." Scrubbing his face with his hands, he sat up. "You think Lucius Snow ever had days like this?"

"Probably. The paper came to him for a long time--decades."

Gary groaned.

Marissa held out her hand, palm up. "But that means he found a way to deal with days like this. Maybe you need--"

"Miss Clark?" Nick, one of the assistant cooks, sidled up to them, shifting from foot to foot as if whatever was wrong was his fault. "The produce delivery's here. They forgot the lettuce again."

"I'll call Howard in a minute, Nick, thanks." Marissa turned back to Gary. "It sounds as if it's too much for one person to handle alone. Maybe you need some help. "

"Where am I supposed to get help? Chuck's not coming back from California just because I can't handle this, and Crumb doesn't want to know what's going on. Who else can I trust?"

Marissa set her mouth in a hard line. "Gary. I am right. Here."

"And you're juggling how many things here at the bar while I'm gone? You do help, Marissa, I'm sorry, I don't mean to discount that. But I can't ask you to go out and try to stop traffic, you know?" He looked around for a bartender, but couldn't find one, so he moved behind the counter to pour himself a cup of coffee.

"Fair enough," Marissa said, though her voice was tight.

"Cat hasn't even been around." Gary took a drink of the coffee and winced. "How long has this stuff been sitting out?"

He dumped the contents of his cup and the pot into the sink, then pulled out a new filter and grounds to make more. "Take car accidents. The paper gives me a general location where something's going to happen--cross streets, right? But most of the time, I need to be on the side of the street where whatever's going to happen is going down. Usually, I can count on Cat to be there and lead me toward where I need to be. But lately it hasn't been there, so I've had to go earlier to figure it out." Gary shook his head as he poured new water into the coffee maker. "I thought I could at least count on it for stuff like that."

"He has seemed more preoccupied lately," Marissa said.

"Preoccupied?" Gary flipped the switch on the coffeemaker and checked his watch. He might just have time to get some fresh caffeine in him. He pulled the pot out and stuck his mug under the dripping coffee. "How can you tell?"

"I have a degree in psychology," Marissa reminded him.

"People psychology, not cats." The coffee wasn't coming out fast enough; there was less than an inch in his cup. "You need to get out more."

"You don't say." Marissa smoothed a stray hair back into place, and Gary realized what was different--a new hairdo, something pulled back and curled on top, with a thin gold headband. Huh.

He was about to ask her if she had a date or something, when she said, "Look, Gary, Cat and I have a connection." Right on cue, Cat jumped from somewhere on the floor into her lap. "There you are," she said, and started stroking its head and tickling its chin. "He seems kind of stressed. Poor thing."

"You're sympathizing with the cat? What about me?"

"Well, it seems like you're stressed because you're not getting as much help from Cat as you'd like, and that's happening because he's stressed, so if we can help him, we can help you."

He checked his watch again; the three inches of coffee he'd accumulated would have to do the trick. "Yeah, well, when you figure it out let me know," he said as he replaced the pot, then poured what was in the cup straight down his throat. "Meantime, I have to get over to Brookfield and deal with a couple of things."

"But you just got here."

"That's what I've been trying to tell you; I can't keep this up." He put his mug to his lips and gulped nothing but air, then remembered it'd already drained the cup. "There's only so much coffee I can pour into this body before my blood turns to pure caffeine."

"At least eat something. Maybe you won't be so cranky."

"I don't have time." He slammed the mug on the bar. Marissa jumped and Cat meowed indignantly. "I have to stop a mugging, a falling window, a bus accident, and an old lady slipping off a bus. Different bus. Not like I could get two for one." He leaned over the bar until he was nose to nose with Cat. "You wouldn't have any idea how to do all that, would you?"

Cat just stared.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." He tucked the paper into his back pocket as he rounded the corner of the bar and yanked his still-damp coat off the bar stool.

"How long will you be gone?" Marissa asked.

"Last thing's supposed to happen around seven. Look, I have to go now, or this stuff isn't going to get fixed."

"I'll probably be gone when you get back."

"Okay. Bye." He started for the door, then turned back. "And if you can talk any sense into that animal, what with your connection and all, why don't you try that?"

He made sure to get out the door before Marissa could reply.

* * * *

Two and a half hours later, Office Kugler congratulated Gary on making bail. "Your friend's out in the lobby," he said. He led Gary through the maze of desks and cops and out into the front room of the precinct. Marissa was waiting by the reception desk.

"Hey, Marissa," Gary said sheepishly. While Office Kugler and the desk sergeant exchanged papers, he bent down to give her guide dog a pat on the head. Even though Marissa couldn't see him, he wasn't quite ready to look her in the eye.

"When you said I needed to get out more, I didn't realize you'd go to such lengths to make it happen."

Gary looked up; Marissa's mouth was twisted in either amusment or anger, he couldn't tell which. "I can explain."

"Yes, you will."

"You're all set," said Officer Kugler. He started to hand Marissa a sheaf of papers, then hesitated. Gary grabbed them. "Just make sure he shows up for the hearing."

Marissa made a funny sound, a choked laugh, and shook her head. "Oh, boy."

"Let's get out of here," Gary said. He took her arm, but Kugler cleared his throat.

"Hey, Hobson, look, just go talk to Mr. Gianelli, okay? I'm sure if you give him a chance to calm down, he'll drop the charges. For what it's worth--" He handed Gary a large manila envelope. "Copies of my incident report and a fax from the hospital about the guy whose life you saved. Show him that stuff. He's just had a rough week."

" _He's_ had a rough week?"

"Gary--" Marissa warned.

"What about my wallet? Are you guys going to figure out who took that? For all we know, it was Mr. Gianelli."

"Gary!" Marissa snapped.

"But--"

"Thank you, officers," she said. "I'll make sure he talks to the restaurant owner. Come on, Gary." She reached out and found his arm, turned Reilly toward the door, and practically pushed Gary ahead of her. Under her breath, she added, "Let's get out of here before you get into even more trouble. Besides, don't you have someone to save?"

Outside, Gary stopped under the awning, looking up and down the street for somewhere they could grab a taxi. What with the rain and the encroaching fall, the evening had turned dark early.

"I have got to get something to eat. Now."

Marissa laughed. "How does Italian sound?"

"Now that's just cruel." He sighed. "I told you I couldn't do this anymore."

"And I told you to get some help." Marissa handed him her umbrella, and he unfurled it over the both of them as they walked down the steps. "What in the world happened?"

"I did everything I was supposed to." Gary put up the fingers of his free hand up as he recounted his afternoon. "I put myself between a punk kid with a baseball bat and a businessman too busy crabbing into his cell phone to even know what was going on. Then I ran two miles so I could push some woman out of the way of a window that came loose from its casement five stories up and fell to the sidewalk. After that, I had to sprint seven blocks to make it to the stop where the CTA bus jumped the curb and get everyone out of the way. Which I did, but one of them pushed back. Landed in the mud, tore my jacket, and rolled out of the way of the bus just in time." It had been like something out of the movies, really, but Marissa didn't seem too impressed.

"That's great, Gary, but none of that explains why you got arrested for theft."

He took a deep breath. "I had a couple of hours before the thing with the old lady."

Marissa nodded. "She falls off the bus. A different bus."

"Right." He frowned at her in the streetlight. "How do you keep track of all this stuff?"

She shrugged. "It's a gift. Don't get distracted, explain."

"So I went to this Italian restaurant that was right there on the corner. Sat down, ordered lasange. It came fast, smelled--" He closed his eyes at the memory. "Like heaven. I mean, I haven't eaten since breakfast." His stomach had long since given up growling and was just sulking; his head didn't feel as if it were quite attached to his body. "I take one bite, _one_ , and I'm looking out the window, and I see this guy who's walking down the street just collapse. The woman next to him, she starts yelling for help--"

"Ah," said Marissa. "Now we're getting to the 'dash' part of the dine and dash."

"I didn't--I was trying to help the guy! How was I supposed to know the cops were half a block away?"

"Maybe the fact that the story didn't make it into the paper should have been your first clue. They could have saved him without you."

"Well, I wasn't thinking about the paper, was I?"

"I don't know. Were you?"

"No! I was thinking about helping a fellow human being."

Her teasing grin softened. "Which comes naturally to you."

"Sometimes I wish it didn't," Gary groused. "I'd barely started CPR before they were there, and the next thing I know the ambulance is pulling away and the restaurant owner is telling the cops to arrest me, and I can't pay him because when I go back to the restaurant, my jacket's gone, along with my wallet." He ran his hand through his hair, tilting the umbrella back as he did so. A rivulet of water ran down the back of his neck.

"Don't worry about your wallet," Marissa said. "Officer Kugler explained that it was missing when he called, so before I came down here I called the bank and had them put a hold on your credit cards. So all you've really lost are your driver's license and whatever cash you had--"

"Less than ten bucks, I think." It wasn't as if he'd had time to go to the bank lately.

"So, you buy a new wallet, you get new cards, no big deal."

"My jacket is a big deal."

"But you just said--"

"It was my favorite jacket!"

She pressed her lips together, probably counting to ten. "Get us a cab."

"But--"

"Get. A. Cab."

"Fine." He stepped off the curb and threw up his arm, and within minutes they were in the back of a checkered cab.

Marissa started to give the address for McGinty's, but Gary stopped her. "By the time we get there, I'll have to turn around and come back. That--other thing--is just a mile from here."

"Where can we get some dinner?" Marissa asked the cab driver, and he dropped them off at a brightly-lit diner, tucked away at the end of a side street.

"Looks like a cozy enough place," Gary said over the renewed growling of his stomach. "Two steps up--let me get the door." He let Marissa and Reilly go in ahead of him, and blinked in the harsh lights, into a world of red tables and blue-and-white checked vinyl seats. "Interesting place," he said. "Lots of chrome and...a bizarre yet patriotic color scheme."

One corner of Marissa's mouth twitched. "If your picture's up over the register, tell me and I'll pay in advance."

"That's not funny."

"This whole thing is funny, Gary, you just can't see it yet. Which is why I'm going to fill you up with protein and caffeine. You'll feel much better."

The sign at the front of the diner said, "Seat Yourself", so Gary picked out a round table in a back corner and led Marissa to it. There were a few people in the place, mostly couples and small families absorbed in conversation. Reilly settled himself under the table while Gary helped Marissa out of her coat.

"Of course, _I_ don't have a coat any more," he grumbled, draping hers over an empty chair.

Marissa sighed as she sat down. "Are there crackers on the table you can eat? Ketchup packets? Anything?"

"I'm not cranky because I'm hungry." He knew it was a lie, but he hated being read like a book--a Braille book with large dots--and teased about it, when he'd only been trying to help.

"Oh, please, Gary--"

"I'm cranky because everything's gone wrong today."

At that moment, a waitress showed up. She looked about eighteen, and her hair was dyed to match the blue checks on the chairs--and on her apron. Her nametag was covered in glitter and said, "Tarah".

"Here." She plopped a bowl of chili in front of Marissa and a grilled cheese sandwich in front of Gary. "Anything else?"

"Uh--" Gary began.

"That's my food," said a woman a few tables away.

"You shouldn't order other people's food," Tarah snapped. She snatched back the dishes, stomped over to the woman's table, and plopped them down.

"Miss, can we--" Gary tried to catch the waitress on her way back, but she zoomed right past him. He wiped a bit of drool from the corner of his mouth.

"Maybe she went to get menus," Marissa said hopefully.

"No, they're right here." He pulled one of the paper menus out from between the ketchup and mustard bottles. "And what do you know, they do have crackers." He grabbed a packet of soda crackers from the red plastic basket next to the bottles, ripped it open, and shoved them in his mouth. They only made his stomach complain more loudly.

"We might as well decide what we want now." He read off the options for Marissa, trying to suppress the gnawing monster in his gut. She decided on tomato soup and a turkey sandwich--and what was it with women, anyway, that she had to hear every option before she could order? He could have made someone else's grilled cheese sandwich vanish in ten seconds flat, and from the way the woman was eating it--taking one bite, then reading more of her magazine or answering cell phone calls--she'd never know what had hit her.

" _Here_." Tarah was back; she gave Gary a glass of orange soda and set a mug of something brown in front of Marissa. Gary tensed, waiting for someone else in the diner to claim the drinks, but no one said anything.

"We'd like--" Marissa began, but the girl turned away.

Gary grabbed her arm. "We're ordering now," he told her.

"What _ever_." She shrugged off his hand and pulled out a pad. The pen she pulled from her apron pocket was topped by a tiny troll doll with fuzzy rainbow colored hair. "So?"

"Tomato soup and a turkey sandwich for the lady," Gary said, "and I'd like--"

"We don't have tomato soup."

"It says right here on your menu that you do."

"We used to, eons ago, but now we _don't_. Too much sodium is _bad_ for you. Kind of like sexual harassment," she added, brushing at the spot on her arm that Gary had grabbed with the fuzzy hair of her troll pencil.

"I wasn't--"

"What kind of soup do you have?" Marissa asked quickly.

"Chicken. Or split pea."

"I'll take the chicken," Marissa said. Gary wanted to tell her that she should probably order the split pea if she really wanted chicken, but he didn't want the waitress to get away before she took his order.

"I want a hamburger," he told Tarah. "The biggest one you have. With everything on it."

"Meat is murder," she said, wrinkling her nose.

Gary sucked air between his teeth. "Tarah. Do you or do you not have hamburgers here?"

"Yeah," she sighed.

"Then get me a murdered cow on a bun, okay?"

Another long-suffering sigh. "Fries or coleslaw?"

"Both."

"That costs extra."

"We'll pay for it," Marissa said.

"And can I get--" Gary started, but she was already gone.

"Wow," said Marissa. "That was--surreal. What's in this cup?" Her hand hovered over the top of the mug the waitress had put in front of her.

"Something brown. I think it's tea."

Marissa picked it up and sniffed at it tentatively, while Gary downed half the glass of orange soda. It was too sweet for an empty stomach, and it sloshed around down there like the extra dose of acid that it was.

"You don't really think she's going to bring what we ordered, do you?"

Marissa shrugged. "Hope springs eternal."

"It doesn't matter. At this point licking the stains off the floor is sounding like a good deal."

"I'll tell you what, I'll trade you for whatever's on my plate if you like it better, just as long as you inspect anything I have to put in my mouth."

"Deal." Gary tore open another packet of crackers. While he was chewing, he realized he had forgotten something. "Hey," he said, swallowing the cracker mush, "thanks. For coming down here to bail me out. And feeding me. And the credit cards. And--well, everything."

"You're welcome," Marissa said, calm as always.

"You're...not going to hold this over my head?"

"Probably not," she said with a smile. Tarah came by and put a tray of flavored syrups on their table.

"But you are going to call Chuck the minute you get home, aren't you?"

Marissa's grin turned wicked. "I have to tell somebody."

"Aw, man. What'll it take to keep this mum?" Sweet talk, maybe. "You look great tonight, you know?"

"I know. I mean, I don't know, know, but I have my suspicions." She fingered the charm bracelet she wore, and it all clicked. The hair, the new sweater, the jewelry--

"You were going out tonight, weren't you?" He slumped back in his chair. "Oh, man, Marissa, did I spoil a date?"

"Not a date. Girl's night out."

"Well, look, I promise I'll make it up to you."

She lifted one eyebrow. "You're going to take me out for pedicures and karaoke?"

"Um...well. I don't know if I have the right sandals for purple toenails."

"That's what I thought. How about taking me to the next Bears game?"

"I knew there was a reason we're friends."

Marissa laughed. "Shut up and hand me some crackers."

* * * * *

Laverne Graham was in a hurry. She couldn't miss her bus; she had to get to her daughter's house before Stella left for work. Byron, Laverne's grandson, was far too young to be left alone, even for a bathroom break. Half a minute on his own and he'd either rearrange the living room or find a way to burn it down. It was just because he was two, Stella said, but sometimes Laverne wondered. Stella was at her wits' end with the boy, so much so that going to work was a relief, even if it meant all night on her feet at the emergency room at County.

So Laverne hurried, because she wanted her daughter to keep her job, and because she wanted Byron, whom she loved despite his being so very two years old, to stay in one piece. And yet, when the sweet orange tabby rubbed at her ankles while she was waiting for a light to change, she stopped hurrying, just for a second, and bent down to scratch its ears. "Poor thing, you don't even have any tags, do you? Surely someone's missing you." The cat purred and walked off a few steps. Laverne followed, just to see if the cat was headed for one of the brownstones that lined the street. "You gonna be okay, kitty?" she called, and at that moment, her bus whooshed by on the other side of the road.

"Confound it!" she shouted, and turned on the cat. "Stupid mongrel, making me miss my bus. Now I gotta take a cab. Do I look like I'm made of money?"

The cat streaked off in the opposite direction.

* * * * *

"You know what I think?" Marissa asked. She carefully tore open her second packet of crackers. Gary was on his fifth. They'd shut his stomach up enough that he could concentrate on other things for a few minutes--like where the heck their food was.

"That she could bring us plastic fruit and I'd eat it?" Gary waved an arm to get Tarah's attention, but she didn't seem to see him, even though she was just two tables away.

"That, and also that I'm sure Lucius Snow _did_ have days like today. Everything must have snowballed on him, too." She brushed cracker crumbs from her fingers. "He must have had help to get through it."

"Yeah, well, I wish he would have clued me in on how to make that happen." Gary rubbed at his face. "I wish he would have clued me in on a lot of things."

"I think--"

" _Here_." The waitress set plates in front of them and flounced away.

Gary blinked down at the table.

"What's the damage?" Marissa asked.

"You've got spaghetti with meat balls--oh, I'm sorry, murdered cow balls. There's garlic bread on the top right hand side of your plate. I think mine is...something parmesan." He looked around the nearby tables, but again, no one claimed the plates, though one man was staring in total confusion at a plate full of pirogues. "Let's just eat before she tells us that cheese and pasta are bad for our arteries."

Marissa poked gingerly at the contents of her plate with a fork. Gary hacked off a corner of the breaded mystery meat with the edge of his fork, and popped it into his mouth. "Chicken," he announced. "Oh man..." It was really, _really_ good, and he didn't think it was just his hunger talking. The meat practically melted in his mouth. "Man, I wish I had more time to eat this."

"I think this sauce is homemade. I think the noodles are homemade," Marissa said, sounding just as surprised as Gary felt.

He checked his watch. "The bus thing's supposed to happen in fifteen minutes," he told Marissa, and popped more chicken into his mouth. At this point, not talking with his mouth full was a nicety he didn't have time for. "I figure if we leave in seven minutes, we'll have enough time."

"Meow."

Marissa froze, her fork in mid-twirl. "Is that Cat?"

"Ah, no." Gary ducked his head under the table, but not before sneaking another forkful of chicken. "Yeah." Cat was sitting on Gary's feet; Reilly's tail was thumping madly. "What are you doing here, pest? Whatever you want, I'm not doing it."

"Gary," Marissa chided.

"He's been no help to me at all for days," Gary muttered. Cat just sat there staring at him. "Worthless little--"

"Stop. You don't want to say something you'll regret."

He sat up straight, letting the tablecloth fall back into place. "It's a cat, Marissa. It's not like it has feelings."

"Of course he has feelings. He's not just any cat."

"Oh, so now I should put it on a throne and bring it mahi-mahi?"

"You could start by not calling him 'it'."

"Let me--" he started, but out of the corner of his eye he saw Tarah stop wiping down a nearby table to stare at them. Lowering his voice, he leaned in toward Marissa and started over. "Let me tell you something. That is the most exasperating, stubborn, temperamental animal I've ever come across--"

"'Temperamental' is a good word," Marissa muttered, "and not just for the cat."

"--and it--he--ought to be helping me, not hanging out with the other strays or chasing girl cats or playing video games or whatever the hell he does on nights off. He could have started by not letting me leave that other restaurant in the first place."

"It's not Cat's fault that you went to help someone! It's not your fault, either. Just because it isn't in the paper--"

" _Rrrow_!" Cat dashed out from under the table, toward the door--and past the woman with the grilled cheese sandwich.

"Oh, now you've done it, you've made him angry," Marissa said.

"I didn't--it's a cat, Marissa, and--and that woman's choking." Gary jumped up from the table and hurried over to the woman. She had both hands on her throat and her mouth was wide open, her eyes bulging in panic as she tried to catch a breath.

"I don't know sign language," Tarah said with a frown.

Gary grabbed the woman's elbow and pulled her up, then got his arms around her and started the Heimlich. It only took two tries before the bit of grilled cheese that had been lodged in her throat flew out of her mouth and landed on his chicken parmesan.

"You okay?" he asked as she caught her breath.

"Yes--I--" She coughed a couple of times. There was a weak round of applause from the other diners, but they went back to their food almost immediately. "I think so." He held on to her elbow while she took a deep breath, then turned a brilliant smile on him. He hadn't noticed before, but she was...pretty. Brown eyes, a scatter of freckles over her nose, dark blonde hair in some kind of complicated knot. "Thank you."

"My pleasure," he said. "You'd better sit down."

"I'm Kelly." She said, and sat down hard.

Over by the front door, Cat meowed loudly.

"We don't allow cats in here," Tarah sniffed. "It isn't _sanitary_."

Gary ignored her. "Hi, Kelly. Um..."

"You're Gary," Marissa stage whispered, right behind him. She had her coat on and Reilly's harness in her hand. Kelly lifted an eyebrow.

"Yeah. Gary. That's--I'm Gary."

"You have to pay your bill if you're leaving," Tarah insisted.

"Oh, we would never leave without paying," said Marissa, grinning from ear to ear.

Gary jerked his thumb at Marissa and mouthed, "Just friends." Kelly started to laugh--and coughed instead. Gary found a glass of water at the empty table behind him and handed it to her.

While Marissa pulled bills out of her wallet--she always folded each denomination differently so that she could tell them apart--and handed them to Tarah, he asked Kelly, "You sure you're all right?"

"It just went down funny, is all." She nailed Gary with a wide, earnest gaze. "But if you hadn't been here, I don't know what would have happened."

Someone else would have saved her, he thought, because the story hadn't been in the paper. But he wasn't about to tell her that. And it sure as heck wouldn't have been Tarah, who came back and handed more money in change to Marissa than she had paid in the first place.

"I'm sorry, Gary, but we really need to go." Marissa jerked her head toward the door. "That thing with the bus--"

"Oh, yeah." He looked regretfully at Kelly. "Nice to--uh--"

She pulled a business card out of her pocket and handed it to him. "Call me sometime."

"I'll do that. I'll definitely--yeah." He nearly tripped over a rapidly-departing Cat as he went to meet Marissa and Reilly at the door. Along the way, Tarah handed him a doggie bag. The contents were shaped like, and smelled very much like, a hamburger. He decided to just go with it.

"That was very smooth. Verrry subtle," Marissa told him as he helped her down the stairs. "Were you gaping like a fish, or trying to signal her that we're not a couple?"

"I wasn't--how would you know?"

Marissa just smiled smugly.

"I swear, you're worse than Cat sometimes." He unwrapped the burger and bit off a third of it as they headed toward the corner.

* * * * *

"You're late," Stella said when Laverne walked in. She already had her coat on and her purse in her hand. "And Byron's on his last diaper. Would you pick some up?"

"You mean take Byron shopping?"

"I would have gone down there myself before work if you'd been here on time. What happened?"

Laverne was too embarrassed to explain the cat. "Bus didn't come," she said, which happened once in a while, often enough that her daughter bought it.

"Ouch. Sorry." Stella dug through a plastic bin by the front door and came up with an umbrella. "Look, I left some money on the table. Size fives, and don't get the generics. They give him rash."

"When are you going to train that boy to use the toilet?"

"When I get ten minutes free. You're welcome to start tonight if you want." They both looked at Byron, who was dismantling a block tower with a plastic hammer. "Or not. Thanks, Mom." She kissed Laverne on the cheek, hugged Byron while ducking the hammer, and left.

"Looks like it's just you and me, kid," Laverne said. "Where's your raincoat?"

"Smash!" Byron shouted gleefully.

* * * * *

"Hold up here," Gary told Marissa. They came to a stop under a streetlight, and he pulled the paper out to check on the location and time of the next disaster.

"Did you at least apologize to Cat?" Marissa asked as he tried to juggle turning pages, the doggie bag, and the umbrella.

"Apologize for what?"

Marissa pressed her lips together and lifted an eyebrow.

"Doesn't matter. He's gone again." At which point, of course, Cat circled around from behind a trash can, mewling loudly.

"You were saying?"

"I have no idea what's going on. Here, can you take this?" After handing Marissa the umbrella, he turned back to the metro section. "Okay, the lady falls getting off the bus and breaks a hip." He scanned page seven, blinked, closed the paper, and turned back to page seven.

"What is it?"

"It's gone. The story about the old lady isn't there any more."

"Meow," Cat insisted.

"Are you sure? "

Gary started with page one, checking everywhere. "Maybe I had the wrong page."

"It's probably karma," said Marissa. "You saved that woman from choking, and so the paper gave you a little break. And by the way, she wasn't in the paper either, was she?"

"What's your point?" He turned back to the front pages and scanned the national and world stories, just in case.

"All day long you've been saying you can't do this anymore, but the truth is, you can't _not_ do it. Even when the paper's not telling you what to do, you're the first one to jump in and help people."

"Maybe," Gary muttered, still absorbed in looking for the story about the woman. "I can't even remember her name."

"Kelly."

"No, the old lady who fell getting off the bus."

"Leave it, Gary. It's cold, it's raining--let's just go home."

It was tempting. But Cat was still there, standing next to Reilly and watching Gary intently. "There must be something--oh, crap."

"What?"

The story on page twelve was straight out of a nightmare. "This wasn't here before. A little boy gets lost inside one of those huge warehouse stores, and when they find him hours later, his neck's broken. He's not expected to--" Gary choked back the rest; Marissa's expression was already horrified enough. " _Damn_ it." He checked the address and the street sign a few feet away against his mental map of Chicago. "It's a couple blocks from here. Let's go."

* * * * *

Dripping despite Marissa's umbrella, because the rain had picked up and started going sideways, they eventually made it to the Cost Cutter's Club store. Gary folded the umbrella while Marissa stood next to him, eyes growing wide.

"Is this place as big as it sounds?"

"Bigger." It was cavernous, row upon row of shelving stocked nearly to the ceiling and stretching back so far he couldn't see the other end of the store. Carts so full their drivers couldn't possibly see where they were going wove in and out of the side rows in a hypnotic ballet. "Watch out for yourself; it's busy tonight."

"Great." Marissa gave a little shudder, then squared her shoulders. "Okay, what now?"

"The kid's name is..." Gary checked the story. "Byron. Byron Graham. He gets away from his grandma, she's Laverne--I know that name. How do I know that name?"

"Where, Gary? Where does he get away from her? When?" Marissa bounced impatiently on the balls of her feet. "We have to find him."

"Now. She's buying diapers." Folding the paper and stowing it back in his pocket, he looked around for a directory, but there was none. "Where the hell are the diapers?"

"Aisle forty-one," a teenaged boy with a green apron, a box cutter, and an armful of flattened cardboard told him, nodding toward the right. "All the way at the back."

"Of course they are. Come on." Gary took Marissa's arm and they hurried, Reilly's toenails and Marissa's heels clicking on the slick tiled floor. He steered Marissa around giant displays of chocolate cereal, coloring books, and screaming kids. None of them looked like the boy in the picture.

"Reilly's trained to do this Gary," Marissa said about halfway to the back. "You just go, and we'll follow."

"Right. Just go forward, as much as you can. Listen for me."

He took off, ducking and weaving through shopping carts loaded with giant jars of spaghetti sauce and more rolls of toilet paper than McGinty's used in a month. He tried to read the signs as he hurried down the aisle, but in the end he didn't need them to find the diapers.

"By-ron! Byron, you come back this _second_! Byron!" The woman was at the end of a row that was stacked floor to ceiling with diapers, waving a child's blue raincoat. Her frantic, shrill calls got her strange looks from the other shoppers, but no one had stopped to help.

"Laverne Graham?" Gary asked. She turned to him sharply, and before she could ask how he knew her name, he said, "Where'd he go?"

Her face fell. "I just turned around for a second. The size fives were all the way down at the bottom, and I had to bend over, and let me tell you, that's a long way down for an old woman my size, and when I turned back he was gone. What am I going to tell his mama? Byron!"

"You'll tell her about how we found him," Gary said firmly. "Where would he go?"

"He's two," Laverne said sharply. "Where wouldn't he go?"

"Toys," Marissa said. She was at the end of the aisle, holding Reilly's harness with both hands. "There's a spot back there that's all electronic sounds, whistles and beeps and songs."

"He wanted to go there, but I told him no, we just had money for diapers and maybe a box of chocolate milk." Tears sprang into Laverne's eyes. "He loves chocolate milk!"

"Don't worry, we'll find him," Gary said, gritting his teeth and willing it to be true. "Follow me," he told Marissa, but she was already ahead of him. He turned with her, Laverne at his heels, into an aisle that went on longer than three McGinty's in a row, full of every beeping, shrieking, singing toy in existence. He snagged the arm of a stock girl trying straighten a display of plastic cars. "Did you see a little boy come through here? Alone, wearing--" He turned to Laverne.

"He's wearing an orange shirt," Laverne said in a wobbly voice.

"Call security," Gary told the girl. "You've got a lost kid."

She nodded and hurried away. Gary trotted down the aisle, but every kid he saw seemed to be with someone, and seeing as how Laverne kept muttering prayers behind him and didn't break out into any "hallelujahs", he knew Byron wasn't there.

"Where would he go?" he asked again when he came back to Marissa and Laverne.

"Mister, you don't understand. My grandson is two. If you tell him to walk, he runs. If you tell him to run, he sits down and will not move. Tell him to stay down, he climbs as high as he can. Tell him to go out, he comes in, tell him to stay in, he--" One hand over her mouth, Laverne whirled toward the front entrance. "What if he left the store?"

"He climbs..." Gary trailed off, his gaze lifting up, up, past the Lego display to the vast array of cardboard boxes on the higher shelves. "Broken neck..." he whispered, then shouted, "He didn't go out, he went up!" He pushed past Laverne and into the main aisle, craning his neck to see the tops of the shelves. A few rows away, boxes tottered.

"There!"

"Where?" Marissa called. "Reilly, follow Gary."

By this time, the idea that something was wrong was slowly trickling into the minds of the fluorescent-dazed shoppers, and people were getting out of his way. Gary ran without really looking where he was going, trying to keep track of the ripple of movement at the top of some shelves in the back. Byron must have stayed with the diapers after all. A Code Adam announcement came over the PA system, and the employees around Gary and Laverne started calling Byron's name along with them.

Gary grabbed the nearest stock boy. "Get a ladder," he said. "I think this kid went up."

"But he couldn't--"

"Oh, yeah, he could," Gary said, pointing at the moving boxes overheard. The kid ran toward the stockroom.

Marissa's voice cut through the other calls. "Gary, over here!"

"What?" The boxes he'd seen moving were at the back of the store, but she was moving the other way.

"Gary!"

Reluctantly, he broke eye contact with the trail he'd been following and ran up to Marissa.

"It's Cat," she said. "I heard him, I know I did."

"But--" Gary looked back over to the place he'd been and another box moved--as a bird swooped out from behind it.

"Okay, where?"

She didn't have to answer; Cat did. It yowled from ten feet over Gary's head. Marissa turned her face toward the sound. "Is he--"

"You're not going to believe this," Gary said.

"Why are you people worried about a cat?" Laverne demanded. "My grandson is--"

"Kitty!" a high voice squealed, also ten feet up, on the other side of the aisle.

"Oh my God, Byron!" Laverne's shout was equal parts relief, anger, and terror. The kid was sitting atop a tower of cardboard boxes, waving his arms.

"How did he get up there?" another store employee asked.

"He's _two_ ," chorused Gary, Marissa, and Laverne.

"Where's the ladder?" Gary demanded.

"Uh--"

"Go find it!"

Gary tried climbing the shelves, but once he got about five feet off the floor they swayed too much, and he was afraid he'd bring Byron down the short way. Jumping back down, he yelled again for a ladder. Then he turned and watched Byron kick his heels against the cardboard box he was sitting on. "You stay right there, Byron, okay? Stay." Byron giggled; the box rocked under the force of his kicks.

"Here it comes," said Laverne, and Gary took his eyes off the little boy long enough to confirm that the employees were wheeling a platformed ladder down the main aisle.

"Kitty!" Byron shrieked. Gary whirled back; Byron was now standing on top of the wobbling cardboard box, reaching for Cat, who was yowling across the aisle.

"Hey," Laverne snapped. "I know that cat."

"What's happening?" Marissa asked, but there was no time to explain. Byron had curled himself into a cannonball, ready to jump.

"Byron, buddy, you stay right there. Don't move, you hear me?"

The little boy launched himself across the aisle. He landed on his stomach next to Cat just as the box he'd been standing on tottered a final time and crashed to the floor, narrowly missing Gary and spilling rolls of toilet paper down the aisle. Laverne screamed while Byron shouted, "Again! Again!"

"Okay, now Bryon, I don't want you to move," Gary implored, one hand out. "You listen to me this time, kid, you can't--"

Cat jumped, landing on Gary's chest. As he stumbled back, Gary's arms went around the animal reflexively, then opened again, tumbling Cat to the ground, when Byron's delighted, "Kitty jump!" sounded above him.

Laverne's squeal, Marissa's gasp, the squeak of the ladder wheels--they all slowed down and faded away in the split second in which Bryon opened his arms and leapt into thin air directly above Gary's head.

Gary wasn't capable of moving, of thinking, of anything other than holding out his arms and hoping. If Cat's impact hadn't forced him back, he wouldn't have been in the right place to wrap his arms around Byron's torso as the little boy fell.

The force tumbled them both to the ground, but when Gary could open his eyes and breathe again, he had a squirming, squealing two-year-old in his grasp.

"Again!" Byron cried, and Laverne rushed in, kicking toilet paper out of the way.

"Oh, baby, what were you thinking?"

"Gary?" Marissa called from the end of the aisle, over the rattle of conversation around them.

"Right here." He grunted as he stood.

"Let us through," Marissa insisted, and the employees cleared the way for her and Reilly. "You okay?" she got close enough for Gary to touch her arm.

"I think so." He put a hand on her shoulder to steady himself.

"Where did Cat go?" she whispered as the crowd around them dispersed and a store manager started talking loudly about liability--or rather, the store's lack of it. "Is Bryon okay?"

"I have no idea, and yeah, he's fine." He outlined what had happened while Laverne dealt with the manager.

"Good for Cat," Marissa said when he'd finished. "Now you really owe him an apology."

"I had something to do with it, too."

The store manager brought Laverne two large packs of diapers. "Free of charge, ma'am, as long as you understand this is just a courtesy. We don't want any hard feelings."

"You mean you don't want any lawsuits," Laverne snapped. Byron was already struggling to get out of her grip.

"Well, now, ma'am, I can't see where the store was at fault," the young man stuttered, squirming under her glare.

"Where's kitty?" Byron demanded, and just like that, said kitty was winding its way around Gary's legs.

"That cat," Laverne said, turning her angry expression on Gary. "That cat is the reason I was late tonight! We wouldn't have had to come here in the first place if it weren't for that damned thing."

"What do you mean?"

"It made me miss my bus! I was so late that my daughter didn't have time to get Byron's diapers herself."

Gary gulped, realizing what had happened to the original story about the woman falling off the bus. He glanced over at Marissa; her mouth was hanging open.

"You'd better get it out of my sight, or I'll make kitty burgers out of it."

Gary's stomach growled. Somewhere in the search for Byron, he'd dropped the doggie bag and lost the rest of his hamburger.

"Don't even _think_ about it," Marissa told him.

"I'm sorry," Gary told Laverne, though he knew she was actually lucky to have missed the bus. Just then, Byron broke free of her grip and dove for the cat. Gary grabbed him around the waist and threw him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He took one of the bags of diapers from Laverne and tucked it under his other arm. "Come on, kid," he said over Byron's delighted squeals. "I'm going to make sure you get home in one piece."

"Kitty, too!"

"Yeah," Gary told him as they all started for the front door. "Kitty, too."

* * * * *

"It's forty-eight hours."

Gary up from his book and across the desks to Marissa. He'd thought she was absorbed in bookkeeping chores. "What's forty-eight hours?"

"The 'Give Me a Call' window. When a woman gives you her number, you need to call her within forty-eight hours, or she won't think you're interested."

"What makes you think--" No, of course Marissa knew he'd been interested in Kelly; he'd stammered like a school boy after he'd saved her life. He set _Lost Chicago_ down on his desk. "What makes you think I haven't called her?"

"Because I know you."

"She said to call her 'someday'."

"Which means forty-eight hours. Less if you want a serious dinner date, a little more if you just want coffee. Trust me," she said as she punched a couple of buttons on her computer that made the Braille printer start whirring, "you need to call her."

"It's only been eighteen hours," Gary muttered, turning his attention back to his book.

"Tick, tock."

"I'll call her." He would, but he sure as heck wasn't going to do it with Marissa sitting right there.

"You'd better." She pulled a page out of the printer and ran her fingers over it. "We need to revamp the weekend schedule again. Everybody's availability is different than it was this summer."

"Uh-huh." Gary stared at the picture in front of him, even though he knew it by heart. Lucius Snow in his printer's visor; Cat sitting on the desk next to him, staring right into the camera. "You know, I wonder if Cat ever tried to get him a date?"

"Who?"

"Snow. He doesn't look like he was a happy guy, but I guess you never know."

"Wait--you think Cat was trying to get you a date?"

"I might not have been the first one there to help Kelly if it wasn't for Cat."

"Well, you did say you wanted his help."

"Yeah, but--"

"And he did help you with Byron. Did you ever apologize?"

"It's just a cat." Gary snapped the book shut, frustrated because he knew what he'd just said wasn't true. "Aw, what the hell. I'm never going to figure this out, and I have to go stop a bunch of kids from getting on the Ferris wheel down at Navy Pier."

Marissa's eyes widened. "Oh, no."

"Not a big deal, but there are some pretty freaked out first graders when the thing stalls out with them at the top. I figure it's better if they don't get on at all, rather than spending a few hours up there."

"Good thinking." She went back to her papers, and said with feigned casualness, "You don't know where Cat is, do you? I had the cook save some salmon for him."

"No," he said, and then admitted, "He didn't even stay with the paper this morning. I heard him yowl, but he was gone by the time I got to the door." He stopped, noticing the smirk on her face. "What, what are you grinning at?"

"You called Cat 'he'."

"Doesn't mean anything."

"Suuuure it doesn't. You should look for him."

"I did. He wasn't in any of the usual spots."

Marissa tilted her head to one side. "That sounds like a riddle: where do you find a magical cat?"

Gary pulled the _Sun-Times_ out from under _Lost Chicago_. "The last place I look."

"Funny. You know, if this paper thing falls through, you ought to try standup. Audition at Second City. Or we could turn McGinty's into a comedy club."

"All right, all right, I'm going." Gary headed out the door.

"They have open auditions at the Noble Fool every third Monday!" she called after him.

Sheesh. He grabbed an apple as he went out through the kitchen; after yesterday, he wasn't going to risk going hungry again.

* * * * *

It was a beautiful day, brilliant sunshine after the previous day's rain, and for once there was so little on Gary's to-do list that he decided to walk home from Navy Pier. His mission had been accomplished with relatively little effort; he'd talked the cute school teacher into taking the kids on the merry-go-round, much to the disappointment of some of her more adventurous students. He was just a couple blocks from home when he caught a flash of ginger out of the corner of his eye, a furry form headed down a dark alley between a Cuban restaurant and a furniture store. "Cat?" He stepped into the alley, peering behind the trash can. "Cat? That you?"

Cat meowed, a little farther in, and Gary followed. Despite the swath of blue sky above, the buildings were tall enough to block out much of the sunlight. He lost Cat somewhere in the shadows of trash dumpsters and empty loading pallets. "What's going on, buddy? Look, I'm sorry, okay? I know that you're a big help. I could really use you, if you could just--"

Another meow sounded from farther in the alley--louder, more insistent, and he knew, though if anyone had asked him he could not have said how he knew, exactly, that it wasn't Cat's.

"Oh. Sorry, mistaken identity." He started back for the street, sure he was losing his mind--why else would he be talking to strange cats in dark alleys?-- when Cat--his cat, this time--leaped from the top of a nearby trash dumpster into his arms.

"Okay, buddy, what the heck is going on?" Cat nuzzled Gary's hand, jumped down, took a few steps toward the dark end of the alley, then stopped and turned to look at Gary. It seemed for all the world as if he were trying to tell Gary something. Gary's eyes were growing more accustomed to the gloom; he ventured a few more steps into the alley and once again heard the faint call from another cat.

"Why don't you go check it out yourself?" he asked Cat.

"Mee-row," Cat said, sitting on his haunches and sounding a little...forlorn.

"Okay, okay." Gary walked slowly toward the other end of the alley, not sure what was going to jump out at him. When he saw what was there, tucked behind a pallet that was leaning against the wall of the furniture store, he backed up and looked over at Cat, who was keeping a safe distance several yards away. "You gotta be kidding me."

* * * * *

"Marissa." Gary burst into the office, grabbed the emergency flashlight from the top of the file cabinet, and pulled Marissa up by the elbow, even though her fingers were still moving over her keyboard. "I need you, come on."

"What? Wait, you're making it worse." Shaking him off, she disentangled herself from the cord to her headphones. "What's going on?" She reached for Reilly's harness, but Gary stopped her hand.

"Leave Reilly here. We have to--"

Sarah stuck her head in the office. "Miss Clark? Joe just called in sick and there's no one to cover his shift. Can you call Brent?"

"You call Brent," Gary told Sarah.

"But, Gary, I'm supposed to--" Marissa started.

Gary waved Sarah back out to the bar. "It can wait, come on." He tugged Marissa's arm, pulling her toward the door.

"Gary, what is it?"

"Just come with me, will you:?"

She rolled her eyes. "All right, but for heaven's sake, stop trying to drag me to--where are we going?"

"I found Cat," he told her as he led her through the kitchen and out the back door--properly, this time, with her light touch on his elbow, though he had to force himself not to run.

"Is something wrong?"

"I'm not exactly sure."

"You're making absolutely no sense," she said, but she went with him around the corner and down the block, across the street again and into the alley. She sniffed; her nose stayed wrinkled. Gary had been too busy the first time he'd been here to notice the smell of the restaurant's trash dumpsters. "You found Cat here?"

As if on cue, Cat was at their feet, rubbing against Marissa's ankle. "I don't understand." Marissa reached down and found Cat's head, scratching the spot between his ears. "What's he doing here?"

"The reason's a little farther in," Gary said, and led her to the end of the alley, stopping beside the pallet he'd found earlier. "I also found the missing bar towels. Listen."

Marissa stilled, and they both heard the tiny mewling. Her mouth opened, then widened into a delighted smile. "Kittens?"

"Yup." Gary shone the flashlight through the bars of the pallet. The mother cat, a grey calico, blinked fiercely and gave the same call Gary had heard earlier. In a nest made of McGinty's bar towels, tiny bundles of fur were cuddled against her side. Gary was able to make out two noses and another pair of ears. "Looks like three of 'em. They've got to be his. Two gingers and one grey, like the mom."

"Cat's a daddy? No wonder he's been so scarce."

Gary turned the flashlight back down the alley, where Cat sat watching them. "He won't come near them, though."

"Mama probably won't let him," Marissa said. One of the kittens let out a squeak. "Oh, they sound so--"

"So help me, if you say 'cute' and get all gooey about this--"

"But they're _kittens_ , Gary. I wish--" She bit her lip, but she didn't have to say it.

"Huh." He squatted down and peered between the slats. Though the kittens were curled up against their mother, they didn't seem to be eating. "Their eyes are closed, but their heads are kinda moving. Do you think it's okay to pick them up?"

"Definitely. They're not wild birds. They have to get used to people, or they'll grow up feral. And our Cat's kittens are going to have to be around people."

He stared at Marissa for a moment. "Oh, no..."

"Just let me hold one," she insisted, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

Gary took a deep breath, set the flashlight on the nearest dumpster, and carefully moved the pallet that was sheltering the mother and her babies a foot or so out of the way. He knew more about dogs than cats, even after having kinda-sorta had a cat for a few years. So he did what he would do with a strange dog; he stuck his hand near the mother's nose to let her smell. After a moment, she pressed her nose against his hand, then licked it with her sandpaper tongue.

"I'm not going to hurt your babies, okay? I just want to help." He kept talking in a low, soothing voice as his other hand moved in and closed gently around the ball of fur furthest from the mother cat's head. "Juuusst want to see what we've got here." The mother made no protest as he took the kitten into his hands--it was lighter than a tennis ball, and warm--and stood.

"Ready?" he asked Marissa. In response, she held out her cupped hands. The kitten flowed out of Gary's hands into hers, like liquid fur. Its head turned into Marissa's exploring fingers, rubbing against them.

Marissa gave out a little squeak that was not that different from the noises the other two kittens were making. "It's so tiny."

"Its eyes aren't even open."

"They must be awfully young. Do you think--should we take them to the vet?"

"Oh, no, now wait a minute. These are not our kittens."

"But Gary--"

"What am I supposed to do with three more cats?"

She draped a tiny leg over her finger, stroking it. "You were the one who wanted help."

"Kittens are not help. They're--they're a nuisance, is what they are." And yet he found himself lifting another baby into his own hands. Its markings were just like Cat's, except for one front leg that was white from knee to paw. It was kind of cool, the way it just trusted him, cuddling into his palm as if it fit there.

Marissa wasn't about to give up. "Look at how Cat stopped Mrs. Graham from falling off the bus last night, and how he made sure Byron fell right where you could catch him. Who knows what else Cat's done that we don't know about? If there's a whole team of them helping you--"

"And wanting tuna, and showing up out of nowhere, and getting underfoot..." Gary replaced his kitten next to its mother. Holding it too long was dangerous, that's what it was.

"It's going to be great," Marissa said.

"One step at a time. Let's just--go call a vet or something and see what we're supposed to do." He reached over to get the kitten from Marissa, but at that moment the kitten stuck out a tiny tongue and licked her finger, and she melted all over again, putting the darned thing right up to her cheek.

"It's so soft. And it's purring!"

Gary looked at Cat, who had ventured a little bit closer. "We are in so much trouble."

Cat meowed in agreement.

"We can make a spot by the radiator in the office," Marissa said, planning three steps ahead of him, just like she always did. "Not too close, of course, but they'll need to be warm. We should put signs up around the neighborhood to see if the mother belongs to anyone. They'll need to be held several times a day, and once they're weaned--"

"Whoa. Just--hold on a minute."

"You asked for help," she pointed out again.

"Yeah. Yeah, I did. Marissa--" He stopped. He wasn't sure how to say what he wanted to say.

"Yes?"

"Uh--hold on." He walked over to the dumpster where Cat sat watching him. "C'mere, Buddy." Cat jumped into his arms, and Gary could have sworn he felt a sense of relief as he rubbed his head against Gary's chest. It must have been coming from Cat. He took a deep breath, glad that Chuck wasn't here to witness this. "Look, Cat, I'm sorry if I, you know, ever took you for granted. I know you're just doing your part in all this and--uh--" He looked over to see if Marissa was listening. She was pretending to pet the kitten, but there was a bit more tension in her shoulders than before. "Sometimes I don't sound very grateful. But I am. So are we friends?" Cat purred, the rumbling in its--his--throat vibrating against Gary's chest, then jumped down and went back to his post at the end of the alley.

"I guess that means apology accepted," he said.

"I'm sure it does," Marissa said, and held out the kitten in his direction. "We'd better leave this one with its mother while we figure out how to get them into McGinty's."

Gary took the kitten from her, hesitating just long enough as their hands meant to say, "Thank you."

She smiled, not the ooey-gooey cute kitty smile, but the smile that meant everything was okay between them. "You're welcome."

As they stepped out of the alley and into the sunlight, Marissa said, "You know, Gary, you're going to have to come up with some really creative names for them. I mean, I know you outdid yourself with 'Cat', but you'll have to go the extra mile now. Kitten One, Kitten Two, and Kitten Three? Or--ooh, I know! Kitten, Kit, and Kitty."

"Very funny. What were you saying about becoming a standup comic?" Gary nudged her shoulder. "Now, see, me, I was thinking of Cat Junior, Cat Two, and The Other Cat. You know, give them something to grow into." He tried to imagine an army of cats telling him what to do with the paper, but couldn't quite do it.

"I wonder if Lucius Snow ever had a day like this," Marissa said.

Gary looked back at Cat, sitting sentry for his new family. "It wouldn't surprise me one bit if he did."

* * * * *

 


End file.
